007: A Second Opinion

Summary: In This Episode: A very different kind of episode: a story that’s not from the newsletter, but rather one that’s too long and complex to be shortened to 100ish words plus a pithy tagline. It’s an amazing story of despair, hope, and renewal, with a wild twist at the end.<br>
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Show Notes<br>
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* My Primary sources for the story discussed:<br>
* <a href="http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/woman-found-clinging-to-life-ring-hours-after-jumping-from-ferry-1.23079789">Woman Found Clinging to Life Ring, Hours after Jumping from Ferry</a><br>
* <a href="http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/woman-who-jumped-from-ferry-savours-new-lease-on-life-1.23112686">Woman Who Jumped from Ferry Savours New Lease on Life</a> (5 December 2017)<br>
* <a href="http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/woman-who-jumped-from-ferry-meets-her-rescuers-1.23118398">Woman Who Jumped from Ferry Meets Her Rescuers</a> (12 December 2017)<br>
* The story of our friend who used California’s “Death with Dignity” law is also in this blog: <a href="https://thisistrue.com/tom_negrino/">Tom Negrino</a>.<br>
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<a name="transcript"></a><br>
Transcript<br>
Sometimes, people think they’re thinking clearly, but they’re fooling themselves. This is a story about someone who wasn’t thinking very clearly, but I’m telling it because it has a great lesson at the end: how to make sure you’re achieving Uncommon Sense.<br>
I’m Randy Cassingham. Welcome to Uncommon Sense.<br>
I originally told this story in the first season, Episode 24, and I realized it still fits in the show’s new slant, so I’m telling it again.<br>
The story was not in the This is True newsletter: it’s too long and complicated to be distilled down to 100ish words plus a pithy tagline. Worse, it has a few words in it that would catch email spam filters, so it’s better suited to a different medium anyway. The story does still illustrate the importance of thinking things out before doing, and there’s a pretty wild twist at the end. The links to my sources are on the Show Page, at thisistrue.com/podcast7.<br>
My source is several articles in the Times Colonist, the newspaper serving Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It started with a dramatic rescue story that happened in 2017 in the Strait of Georgia, on the Queen of Cowichan ferry from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver, to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, an almost two-hour trip. The main character in the story: Mya DeRyan, a pretty 52-year-old from Ladysmith, on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Ladysmith is a small forestry, agriculture, and tourist town with a population of about 8,500.<br>
DeRyan had gotten some bad news from her doctor: she was suffering chronic headaches, abdominal pain and nausea, and in March, the doctor diagnosed her with a terminal illness, which was not specified in any of the news stories I saw. DeRyan, who says she’s skeptical of Western medicine, decided not to get treated for that illness.<br>
She took several weeks off to visit her adult son in Vancouver, wanting to spend time with him before she died. On October 30th, 2017, DeRyan said her final goodbye, and boarded the ferry back toward her home on Vancouver island. She left her son a note reading: “My body hurts, my heart is full. It’s time. I love you.” She had also posted a video on Facebook that declared she intended to die by “skinny-dipping in the ocean.